I made up my mind, therefore, to escape from my leading-strings; but pass lightly over the artifices I used in order to attain success.

I addressed myself to my mother.

I soon saw that she trifled with me.

I had recourse to my father, whom I made believe that the King, having led a great siege this year, would rest the next.
I said nothing of this to my mother, who did not discover my plot until it was just upon the point, of execution.
The King had determined rigidly to adhere to a rule he had laid down-- namely, that none who entered the service, except his illegitimate children, and the Princes of the blood royal, should be exempt from serving for a year in one of his two companies of musketeers; and passing afterwards through the ordeal of being private or subaltern in one of the regiments of cavalry or infantry, before receiving permission to purchase a regiment.

My father took me, therefore, to Versailles, where he had not been for many years, and begged of the King admission for me into the Musketeers.